All Together Now

 Here are all 52 of the weekly six-word memoirs from 2010.  Somewhat in order, in rows starting up in the upper left corner.  A bit hard to arrange clearly in rows due to the irregular (ie crazy) shapes and sizes.

 I like seeing these grouped together like this all in one place.  Makes it easier to spot all those commonalities through the year and how each one is so very different from the others.

 It is interesting to see the similarity in colors depending upon the season, I also like seeing the different shapes they each ended up.

The quiltlets are now residing in a box that I've collaged and I think that's where they will stay, until I can think of a way to make them into a book.  If I do, I'll be sure and share it here.
So, what's the project for this year? Well, I haven't picked one and here it is April already, so I guess I'm taking a year off at least until something strikes me as *must-do*.
I posted all the pictures of this project on Flickr so they can all be looked at together.  Check it out if you're interested, it might be easier than looking at each post here on my blog. 

Here's a video I made on Animoto using all those pictures:

Kept Under Wraps

 Ta-dah! Here it is....the 52nd and final weekly six-word memoir (from last year).   And of course the last one has to be rather complicated and will take a lot of pictures to show it to you in its entirety.

 The entire thing is comprised of various mesh type materials I've gotten over the last year or so from Fabmo.  Each layer has one of the six words written on white ribbon which is sewn on to the grid of the mesh.  So here is the first layer that has the word: Kept.

 Turn the first layer back and you get to the second layer which says: Under

 
 Here is how it looks so you can see the third layer where the word is:Wraps

 All opened up to the fourth layer where the word is: Night

 The last layer which says: Day

 Extreme closeups of the words on each layer.

The words say: "Kept Under Wraps. Night And Day."  There you go, now you've seen all 52 of these weekly quiltlets.  Tomorrow I'll show you what they all look like up on the wall.

Fields Of Gold

 Here's the 51st in a year-long, weekly six-word memoir quiltlet series from (last year).  This one is yet another crazy/organic shape, made with yellow cottons that were on my worktable from making an additional border for the yellow/purple quilt top from last year.
Gold lame' and gold stretch netting are also used here.

 Yet another one with the words of the week covered up somehow.  Am I bashful with some of these, wanting to hide them away? (probably, this week's is pretty gooshy and emotional).   Or am I just still struggling with making the writing look good with the rest of the quiltlet and still be legible?

Words say: "Fields Of Gold. In My Heart."
Gee, only one more left to show you....

Loveliness Hidden

 For the 50th in the year long weekly six-word memoir series (from last year that is, ahem) I started out with a fairly boring background with colorful silk waste on top.

 Addition of a chenille-ish yarn on top in a vaguely spirally shape.

 The fibers were stretched and combined until they covered the top.  Hard to do if your hands are at all rough, as silk waste is really really fine and floaty.  I had to keep stopping and putting hand lotion on!
Next, I sandwiched and contained everything by placing on top this white cotton netting (a Fabmo piece I was thinking of dyeing at some point).  Stitched in channels and then around the edge of the piece.

 Here is the whole piece completed.  I pulled out the threads on the edges to make a fringe.  This is one of those that will never be completely flat because of the stretchiness of the white netting.  That's ok, it reminds me of one of those woven cotton blankets, all fluffy and cozy.

 The words for the week are in the corner under a flap of the white netting.  I didn't want to take away too much from the overall look of the piece, so this was an attempt at camoflauge.

 Words say:
"Loveliness Hidden, Contained, Kept For Myself". 
They were written on a scrap of hand-dye in blue pen which didn't show up too well, so I wrote over in black.  I like that double lettered, hazy look.

A horizon shot so you can see the dimensionality of the fibers pushing against the stitching and white netting.

Hey! Only two more of these to show you!

Not Interested

Here is number 48 in the weekly six-word memoir quiltlet series. 
 Well this one is pretty negative isn't it?
The words say: "Not Interested In Doing The Holidays", from the first week of December.  
And I really, truly was not. I had to force myself to get into the holiday spirit this year and get all the holiday stuff going.  Understandable I suppose with what was going on for me, but still, unlike my usual M.O.

 I used the striped packaging and red satin ribbons from the Ghirardelli holiday chocolates I bought to "get into the mood" for celebrating the holidays.  The jaggedy edges came about when I was cutting away the product name and information and I liked how the spiky-ness echoed how I was feeling at the time.

 I used a white flannel-ish fabric (actually one of those shoe polishing cloths you get free at some hotels) to stitch the words on with the embroidery stitches on my machine.  The words came out jaggedy and a bit strange looking because I was moving them around to try and get a discombobulated look instead of pretty perfection.

Also used some repeated star embroidery stitching to pretty up the corner.

Puddles Filling, Emptying

 Here's one of my favorites of the whole year-long project of making a weekly six-word memoir quiltlet.  It is number 47.  It may be my favorite even.  (Please don't make me choose).  But honestly, I think I like it so much because the words are not immediately visible, the 3-d-ness of it, the machine embroidery, the fabrics I used and the beading.

 The words say: "Leaves Turning, Falling. Puddles Filling, Emptying."  Sums up late November around here.

 The words are written with fabric marker on a leftover piece of a t-shirt my son was using to patch his pants (don't ask, he wanted a stretchy knee patch) which was on my worktable.  I folded the piece in half and stitched the bottom part down making it stand up.

 The beads function as a bit of a physical prop for the knit material to stand up.

 I had several colors of these leaf shaped glass beads which I thought suited the words of the week really well.

 More gratuitous close-ups of the beading.

I used several of the special embroidery stitches on my machine that had leaves, I think they show up really well on these almost solid brown fabrics.

Fiercely Fighting Forward

 Here's the 46th in the year-long series of weekly six-word memoir quiltlets.  Almost to the end!  This one is made with the plastic leftover after you've peeled off and used a SalonPas pain patch.  I found they really helped with the post-hip surgery pain.  There were so many of these oddly textured (ridged stripes!) thin, flexible, strangely colored, plastic pieces lying around, I of course had to use them in one of these quiltlets.

 The words say: "Struggle For Recovery, Fiercely Fighting Forward."  Sounds way too dramatic to me now, but I suppose it is probably pretty accurate.

 The stamping was done with a dye ink which took a while to dry.  I used one of my largest sized fonts because I wanted to fill up all the blank space with the words.

 I really like how some of the letters are on the fabric and thus are very dark.  It looks so random when you look at the overall piece before you see the rest of the words.

This particular plastic was really easy to sew through on my machine and I like how the thread lies on top so nicely.

Give Thanks

Here is the 45th six-word memoir from last year (this one was mid-November).  I keep trying to get back into the habit of posting daily here and failing utterly, but here I am "try, trying once again."  Yes, stubborn would be a word I would use to describe myself.

Words say: "Give Thanks, Thankful Banner Is Done".  What is a Thankful Banner you may ask? Tune in tomorrow for an actual how-to post from me.

 This quiltlet was made with the scraps from the mysterious Thankful Banner.  Which involves triangles. Of fall themed fabrics.

 The words were hand-stamped onto a very light yellow solid-ish fabric so they'd be mostly legible.

I like how greyed-out and subtle the letters are, suits the fall colors well instead of a deeper ink black lettering.

Giants Win The Pennant! About Time.

 Continuing on with the six-word memoirs, here is number 44, celebrating the long-anticipated win of my beloved SF Giants in the World Series.  The words say with oh-so-much-joy: "Giants Win The Pennant!  about time."

 Black material is from this woven, anti-static thing that was in the new laptop we purchased this year, the orange "pennant" is just some orange mulberry paper, background is a hand-dyed and batiked fabric, the green is from scraps of my childhood pants, and what is that mysterious little plastic baggie?

Tucked into the pocket and then sewn over at the top is a small plastic baggie containing actual warning track dirt/clay from AT&T Park.  I collected it this year when we went to see the SF Opera simulcast  (Aida this year, it was awesome!).   See I knew it would bring them good luck somehow...

One New House, Better Than None

 Here's the next six word quiltlet, number 43.  This was for the week of Halloween, which I was sad to have been too checked-out to participate much in, oh well there is always this year, right?!.

 The words say: "One New House. Better Than None."   Which refers to the one and only new block that I managed to make for my very long in-process Halloween Houses quilt.  The scraps from making that were what made up most of this week's quiltlet.   
Also the writing is on this almost satin ribbon material that made up one of the bandages I was sent home with (an unused one!), it was sticky one side and the ribbon surface was easy to write.